EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL FiLM FESTWAE.
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STANDARD LIFE ' AUDIENCE AWARD
28 THE LIST 19 Jun—3 Jul 2008
JESUS CHRIST SAVIOUR (Peter Geyer, Germany) 84min «.0
' At the beginning of Werner Herzog's engrossing documentary homage to his favourite actor and nemesis Klaus Kinski, My Best Fiend. there is a tantalising glimpse of Kinski performing his infamous 1971 Jesus concert. Finally we have an opponunity to watch the great German actor's infamous stage performance in full as director and Kinski aficionado Peter Geyer has discovered and assembled most of the existing footage to create this definitive record of the theatrical extravaganza.
It's engrossing to see Kinski try and fail to tell a sceptical audience the revolutionary credentials of Jesus Christ. a man with whom the actor clearly identifies a bit too closely. The camera adores Kinski and he's mesmerising, while the finale that sees Kinski deliver his monologue to an empty stadium is haunting. (Kaleem Aftab) I Fi/mhouse, Wed 25 Jun, 70pm; Thu 26 Jun, 70. 75pm, E8 (£6.40).
FEARS OF THE DARK
(Various, France) 85min .0.
This episodic animation is destined for cult status. Five respected graphic novelists have each penned a story detailing what made them scared at night. Dogs. mad girls and silence all feature strongly. Each story has then been given its own unique visual signature. whether 2-D. 3-D or line drawn. but all are in black and white.
The stories inten/veave rather than being told one at a time. and at first this is disconcerting as the narratives and styles (from manga to Felix Vallotton) are so different. As often happens with these ponmanteau projects, some segments (Charles Burns' especially) are better than others. (Kaleem Aftab)
I Cinewor/d, Fri 20 Jun, 8.45pm; Fri 27 Jun, 5. 75pm, £8 (£6.40).
PATTI SMITH: DREAM OF LIFE (Steven Sebring, USA) 109min 000 Patti Smith. the singer-poet and one-time 'godmother of punk'. bares her , 3i soul in this
' "5“ intimate self- portrait, culled from over 1 1 years of filming with her friend. the photographer Steve Sebring. Beginning in 1995. the film is not your average music bio with no talking heads waxing lyrical about how influential Smith is here; rather. set to her own hypnotic stream-of-consciousness voiceover, we get something as personal as sneaking a look in someone's diary as she deals with loss. love and life. Despite
all the moping around graves of dead poets. it's not all glum — note the impromptu jam session with playwright Sam Shepard. But rarely has a film been so indulgent. pretentious and moving all at once. (James Mottram).
I Fi/mhouse, Sat 27 Jun, 6.45pm; Sun 22
~ Jun, 5. 75pm, £8 (£6.40).
TIRAMISU
(Paula van der Oest, Netherlands) 90min 0...
Abandoned by her theatre director husband for a
middle-aged actress and retail therapy junkie Anne seems unconcerned by the impending loss of the Amsterdam houseboat she and her long- suffering daughter live on. Then uptight auditor Jacob arrives to assess the thespian's ailing finances. and as art and commerce clash. painful truths are exposed but with some Surprisingly helpful solutions. Sweet but never sentimental. this comic drama from the Netherlands is a genuine crowd-pleaser. Writer-director Paula van der Oest pulls off the tricky feat of maintaining the awkward romance and winning comedy of an odd couple scenario without recourse to cliche (the film doesn‘t end in the way you might
(Errol Morris, USA) 116min on
younger woman.
expect). And in their adversarial roles extrovert Anneke Blok and introvert Jacob Derwig are a delight. (Miles Fielder)
I Cinewor/d, Fri 20 Jun, 7.30pm; Sat 27 Jun, 3pm, £8 (£6.40).
SOMERS TOWN (Shane Meadows, UK) 75min 0000
While Shane ‘1 ‘ Meadows' last outing. This is England. showed the racist side of British nationalism, his follow-up. the black-and- white Somers Town, demonstrates just how nice the Brits can be to :mmigrants. Starting life as a short film financed by Eurostar, the resulting feature is an amusing tale of new friendships and lust set in and around St Pancras International. This is Meadows' most feel-good outing and a pleasant return to irreverent comedy. Thomas Turgoose. the young star of This is England. plays Tomo. a teenager running away from his Midlands domicile to find solace in the big smoke where he is immediately mugged. Luckily, Tomo meets Marek (Piotr Jagiello). a bored young Polish immigrant and together they get up to a joyful series of pranks in this heart- warming Iark. (Kaleem Aftab)
I Cinewor/d, Fri 20 Jun, 5.30pm; Sat 27 Jun, 2.30pm, 88 (£6.40).
The great documentary filmmaker Errol Morris (The Thin Blue Line and The Fog of War) turns his investigative eye towards the atrocities at Abu Ghraib. The coup of the film is that Morris interviews some of the soldiers who were pictured torturing prisoners in Iraq, most notably the infamous thumbs-up female soldier Lynndie England. As is his want, Morris eschews sensationalist reporting to conduct a procedural investigation that wonders what the photos tell us about the morality of those commanding the American forces.
This approach does have its problems. By concentrating solely on the soldiers seen in the infamous pictures, Morris does not even attempt to undermine the claim that torture was only committed by a handful of rogue soldiers and allows these soldiers a free rein to claim that there were mitigating circumstances behind their heinous crimes.
Morris mixes the talking heads, with the abhorrent photographs, and in a mis-step, also includes some needless reconstructions. Nevertheless, where Morris delivers is in highlighting just how much of the atrocious behaviour of the soldiers in Abu Ghraib was sanctioned by the American military hierarchy. In The Fog of War, Morris tried to uncover what lessons were learned in Wetnam. Standard Operating Procedure strongly suggests that the answer is
none. (Kaleem Aftab)
I Cinewor/d, Sat 27 Jun, 7.30pm 8. Sun 22 Jun, 5.30pm, £8 (£6.40).